Hard lives and helping hands

Life in a forest is not easy. People there often struggle to reach hospitals, schools and clean water. Women cooking over firewood breathe in smoke every day, which causes many health problems.

Their livelihood clashes with rules: forest dwellers depend on firewood, honey, bamboo and medicinal plants, but restrictions on forest use, deforestation and commercial exploitation can cut them off from these. Conservation laws and survival needs pull in opposite directions, and families become economically insecure.

Nature adds danger. Forested hills face floods and landslides that wash away homes, crops and roads or bury villages. Forest fires spread fast through dense vegetation. According to the Forest Survey of India, about 36 per cent of India's forest cover is prone to fire, and nearly 4 per cent extremely prone. Climate change and human carelessness are the main causes; careful people can prevent many fires.

Animals and people clash too. Elephants, monkeys and wild boars damage crops, and sometimes attack people. When roads and towns cut through forests, animals lose their homes; forest bridges over roads (Fig. 2.21) let them cross safely.

Forest dwellers are also often looked down on and ignored (discrimination and neglect), and sell their produce cheaply. Help with processing and marketing would raise their income, and they need help to reach government schemes and to know their legal rights.

What the government does:

• The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, made for Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers. It accepts in law that these communities have rights over the forest land and the resources their families have always lived on: they may collect minor forest produce like bamboo, honey and medicinal plants, and own the small plots they farm.
• Scholarships, health care and skill training for tribal welfare.
• Joint Forest Management (JFM): local communities help protect forests and share in the produce.
• PESA (the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act), DAJGUA (Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan) and PM JANMAN, all for the welfare of tribal communities.

• The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) gives poor families a cooking-gas (LPG) connection, so women need not cook over smoky firewood.

A village that runs its own forest: Mendha Lekha. This small tribal village in the Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, home mainly to the Gond tribe, was the first village in India whose forest rights were recognised under the FRA (2006). Its motto is *Mawa Nate Mawa Raj*: 'our village, our rule'. Every decision is taken together in the Gram Sabha. The village looks after its 1,800 hectares of forest: it controls tree-cutting, prevents fires and harvests bamboo as a renewable resource, and spends the income on education and village facilities. The villagers use their rights (to take part in decisions and control their resources) and do their duties (protecting nature and stopping illegal use) at the same time.